Zeno's Paradox
by TheSpectacledBlonde
Summary: Written from a roleplay with the very best angst writer I've ever met. Sherlock is unable to come to terms with his feelings and pushes them away in the only way he knows how; self-destructing. T for drug use and angst. Pre-Reichenbach.


_I'll be home late. Got held up at Bart's. ..Is everything okay back at the flat? -JW_

_No, John. Nothing is okay. -SH_

_Start talking; I'm on my way back. -JW_

_I can't talk. I don't want to. I have to, I can't, oh, everything's so mixed up inside my head. -SH_

_I hate you. I don't hate you. Why don't I hate you? -SH_

_Sherlock, what's happened? You're not making sense. -JW_

_Nothing makes sense! -SH_

_Are you still at home? -JW_

_Yes. -SH_

_Good, I'm almost there. -JW_

_John, are you going to leave? -SH_

_Please, tell me, are you going to leave, ever? -SH_

_Sherlock, you're scaring me. Tell me what's wrong. -JW_

_Just TELL ME, John, are you going to leave me? –SH_

_I've just arrived, I'm coming inside. -JW_

The lock rattles as John unlocks it and slams it behind him before he dashes up the stairs and to their flat. Sherlock shudders and curls tighter on the couch, waiting for the inevitable opening of the door. Waiting, always waiting.

John throws the door open and sees Sherlock on the couch, curled up in obvious pain. "Sherlock?" John says, furrowing his brow in concern as he rushes to Sherlock's side. "Sherlock. What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong."

"Don't touch me!" The electricity that's sparking the room terrifies Sherlock, the presence of John narrowing everything down into pinpricks of something he can't identify. "Don't," he repeats, hating how weak his voice sounds. How many days has it been since he's eaten? Three. No, four. And still, the enigma remains, still the problem cannot be solved.

John winces and backs away, searching Sherlock's face for an answer. Exhausted, glistening with a sheen of sweat, pinprick pupils. "Oh," he says mostly to himself, realizing something. "What have you taken?"

"Nothing!" Sherlock protests, turning his face away. He can't stand John looking at him. He just can't stand for him to see him, not like this. Lying comes naturally to him. More naturally than anything else. "Go away."

John's face darkens and he moves closer, getting on his knees to level with Sherlock's face. Anger grips him, and he claps a hand on Sherlock's arm. "Don't you lie to me, Sherlock Holmes. You're scaring me, and so help me, I will get your brother involved."

Sherlock says nothing, only turns further away. His limbs feel like they're on fire, the focal point being the imprint of John's hand on his left arm. Everything is so wrong.

"Sherlock." John's tone lowers, his grip eases. He can feel Sherlock's heat radiating off his skin, and he reaches to test his forehead. "You're burning up. I'm going to go get the thermometer and a cold dishcloth, and when I get back you'd better be ready to tell me what you took."

The place where John's hand had been turns cold, then hot, then cold again as he leaves Sherlock alone on the couch, and he wonders if he's supposed to say something, wonders if he's going to stay conscious much longer.

John's mind races as he moves about the flat to get the thermometer and dishcloth. What could he have taken? Heroin, cocaine, morphine, amphetamines. He can't remember when he last cleaned out his stashes. John returns to Sherlock and places the damp cloth on his head. "What did you take? I need you to tell me, or I'm taking you to Bart's so they can."

"I don't know," Sherlock says. Things are starting to spin. "I don't know anything anymore..." Words are bubbling up in his throat, words that he doesn't want to say, but doesn't know if he can stop himself. Things pixellate in front of his eyes, then just as quickly vanish.

John becomes ever-increasingly more worried. "Sherlock? Try and stay with me. What can you remember? Anything would help," he says, directing his attention at the same time to his phone…

_Molly, have an ambulance sent to 221B Baker Street ASAP. -JW_

"I remember...caring about something," Sherlock manages, fighting to stay awake now. Sleep seems so agreeable. It'd be so nice to just let it go for a little while...maybe things would work themselves out while he was sleeping. Maybe. "I hated it. I hated you." John's face changes just a little, though still twisted with fear.

John's stomach aches in terror as he watches Sherlock slipping from consciousness. He places his hands on Sherlock's face, forcing him to look at him. "Sherlock, you need to stay conscious. Do you know what day it is?"

"Saturday," Sherlock says drowsily, then realizes it's wrong; that was two days ago. But he can't bring himself to correct it now. His tongue is heavy. Speaking is too much of an effort. Absently, his hand reaches up for John's, but he can't quite connect them. When he tries, it slips away from him.

"Oh God," John whispers. He reaches for Sherlock's hand and clutches it in his, willing Molly to hurry up with the ambulance. At the same time, his phone dings and he sneaks a glance.

_On the way. Is everything okay? –Molly xxoo_

John chooses not to reply, concentrating on the rapidly deteriorating genius in front of him. "Sherlock. Listen. We're going to get you to the hospital, and you're going to be okay. You need to stay with me. Talk to me."

There we go. John's hand, clutched in his. There we go. Sherlock chokes as a claw seems to descend on his chest, squeezing the life out of him, and he's not sure if he can breathe, not sure what's real and what's not, not sure if John's real or if it's just his imagination trying to manifest what he wants, what he thinks is right. Except nothing is right, because everything is wrong. Sirens begin out the window. They're already too loud.

John hears the paramedics shambling up the corridor and he shouts to them. "In here! Sherlock?" he says, looking back to him. "Sherlock, people are here to help you, okay? You're going to be fine. I'm not going to leave you."

"Don't leave, John," are the last words Sherlock says before he passes out. "Don't ever leave," he murmurs, and his eyes close.

John's face contorts in fear as he watches Sherlock pass out. "I'm coming with him in the ambulance, I'm a doctor," John says authoritatively to the paramedics. He has to come. He promised.

Sherlock comes to three times. Once, he finds himself on a stretcher, rapidly bumping down the dark hallway of 221. Once, outside, with all of the lights playing over his face. So beautiful, he thinks, before the dark comes back over him. And then the last time, in the ambulance, with John clutching one of his hands so hard Sherlock thinks that it might have to be amputated. And he loves it. He loves him.

John sits tensely in the back of the ambulance, clutching Sherlock's hand like a lifeline. He can't stop thinking, and none of the thoughts are good. What if he gets charged with possession of illegal drugs? What if he goes to prison? What if he goes into a coma? What if he dies? The last thought was something that sat heavily in his chest as John stared at the face of his friend, unconscious in the back of an ambulance.

"He's fibrillating," a terse voice grunts from John's left side. "Get the paddles." The EKG monitor they've hurriedly hooked up to Sherlock in the back of the speeding ambulance is going crazy, spiking up and down much too fast and much too far. "Please move back, sir," a commanding voice says, and then John's swept away, pinned to the back of the car's walls as he hears the awful buzzing of the shock paddles, one, two, three times. "Clear," someone says, and Sherlock convulses on the strapped-down stretcher as the paddles touch his chest, just over his heart.

Shoved against the wall of the vehicle, John has an excruciatingly good view of the goings on. His heart leaps into his throat with every shock, and he hopes and prays and _begs_ that Sherlock will be okay. He's gotten so pale. But then, the buzzing stops and everything is drowned in the sound of the ambulance siren as the paramedics move away. John looks to the EKG machine with terror, hoping that it's moving right, that Sherlock's heart is still beating, and is relieved to find that yes, it's still beating, though over the siren, John can hear Sherlock's breathing become shallower.

"ETA?" someone says. John can't hear whom.

"Five," someone else says. Five minutes before they'll be, mercifully, at the hospital. The whole thing is a hazy, awful dream that John's not sure is actually happening. The flashing of the lights through the window is disorienting, but John sucks in breath after breath after breath and tells himself that he must remain calm. For Sherlock.

John clings to Sherlock's hand for the remainder of the ride, keeping his fingers resting on his wrist and feeling his pulse, every beat coming with a miniature sigh of relief from John. When the ambulance finally rolls to a halt, he gets out and stands off to the side, nervously shifting and favouring his left leg. When the gurney comes out of the ambulance, he follows as they roll it into the emergency room, but is stopped by a hand. "I'm sorry sir," a man says, "you're going to have to wait out here. Someone will come get you."

For a moment, John considers fighting him, and then he realizes that the longer he delays them, the longer it will be until they can pump Sherlock's stomach and get whatever he took out of him, the more of it will have the ability to enter his bloodstream. So he lets go of Sherlock with a visceral response, a lump in his throat and a tear clawing at his eye, and settles to the floor, right where he is, to wait for Sherlock as long as is necessary.

Sitting on the waiting room floor, listening to the sounds of the hospital, feeling sick with worry, John realizes something. Being a doctor, he never realized how family members felt while they waited, sympathetic a man as he was. He never understood what it was like to sit by yourself and not know if your best friend is going to live or not But now, dizzy with fear and sadness, he can understand. And he hates every moment of it.

When Sherlock wakes up, everything hurts.

Really, _everything. _Eyes, throat, ribs, everything. "John," he croaks, then winces as his throat protests. There's been a tube down it. He can still taste the plastic. "John," he says again, and then again, until finally a nurse comes through the door, looking at him with concern. "Where's John?" he asks, and the nurse's eyes soften. Sherlock's hair is wild, his eyes with something broken in them, and she feels sorry for him.

"The one that came in with you?"

Sherlock nods, heart in his throat. The nurse smiles ever so slightly. "I'll go and get him for you. Sit tight."

As if he could do anything else.

John jolts awake as a hand shakes his shoulder. He had dozed off. He stands, cracking his back and looking at the nurse who had woken him.

"Your friend is awake, he asked for you. Come with me, please" she says kindly, leading John down a corridor.

John sighs with relief. He's okay. He's alive, and he's going to be fine. Thank God.

The nurse stops outside of a room close to the end of the hall and gestures for John to enter, which he does, hesitantly.

"Sherlock?" John says quietly, poking his head into the room. The covers on the bed rustle, and a mop of curly black hair appears, followed by a pale and haggard face looking pleadingly at John.

"You were under the covers?" John laughs as he comes to Sherlock's side.

"It's dark under there," mumbles Sherlock, unable to meet John's eyes. "The light's too bright."

He's so ashamed. John's been worried, John's been hurt, and it's his fault. This is the exact opposite of everything he has wanted. John must hate him now. Tears prick at the back of Sherlock's eyes, which only makes them hurt more, and he shudders against the stark white of his hospital bed, wishing he could go back under the sheets and stay there forever and ever in the dark, pretending the outside world didn't exist. And maybe John could join him under there and it would just be the two of them always.

John looks at Sherlock, surprised and a little sad to see him show emotions for once. The tears he sees glittering in Sherlock's eyes wash away any anger he felt, and John leans down a bit and wraps his arms around his friend's thin shoulders in an awkward hug.

"It's okay. You're okay. Everything's going to be okay," John mumbles, trying very hard to not cry and be encouraging at the same time, failing badly as his voice cracks.

"Are-Are you feeling alright?" he mutters into Sherlock's shoulder, feeling him shake like a leaf.

The moment John's arms touch Sherlock, everything blots out except for the smell of him, the feel of him, the way John's rough cheek rasps over his forehead. Sherlock doesn't know what to do, for a moment, and then he realizes that he's supposed to hug back. So he does, his arms (so weak, suddenly, why so weak?) wrapping as tightly as he can make them around the doctor's back. "I wasn't," he whispered, feeling the first of the tears leak out of his eyes and drip down his cheeks. "I wasn't, and I don't know if I am now."

"He's nearly emaciated," the nurse clucks, and John and Sherlock spring apart. They've forgotten that she was there. She sniffs at the pair of them. "He is," she repeats herself. "I'm bringing some food up right now. How long has it been since you've had a good, proper meal, young man?"

Sherlock shrugs, but John reads on his face it's been a long time. Longer than usual, maybe.

John coughs and avoids eye contact with the nurse. "Yes. Well. Sherlock, erm, do you... need me to do anything for you? Contact anybody?" he asks, looking back at Sherlock and noticing, perhaps for the first time now that it's been pointed out, that his skin is sallow and pulled tight across his cheekbones. He wonders how he could have missed it.

Sherlock shakes his head. "They'll figure it out- Mycroft certainly already knows," he said faintly, his composure regained. His statement was punctuated and confirmed with a text from the British government himself moments later, stating that all necessary people had been informed of Sherlock's status.

"Well. That's one time I'm glad he spies on us," John chuckled half-heartedly, his poor attempt to inject humour into the situation falling flat.

Sensible shoes clack against the ugly tiles of the hospital floor as the nurse departs, and there's a few seconds of in-between, a hazy little moment where John and Sherlock are just bloody _looking _at each other, and maybe even _seeing _each other.

And then it passes when John drops heavily into a chair, scooting it awkwardly next to Sherlock's bedside. The atmosphere is tense around them, and Sherlock refuses to meet John's concerned eyes.

"I'm not angry," John says, because he thinks it's what Sherlock wants to hear. "I'm not angry at you, I promise."

Sherlock continues to avoid John's gaze, but he listens. And he can tell from the way his voice wavers the slightest bit on 'not' and cracks on 'promise' that he is most definitely angry, with good reason.

"Sherlock." John reaches over and grabs Sherlock's hand, caressing the back of it with his thumb. "Sherlock, I mean it. I'm really not angry. You really scared me, is all. I just wish that you would be more open with me about things. Maybe come to me before you do something stupid." Half of John means every word. He wants Sherlock to tell him things rather than find his answer in the emergency room. The other half desperately wants to scream and yell at him, slap him, tell him how much of an idiot he is. But he doesn't.

"Just," John sighs, looking Sherlock straight in the face without faltering, without wavering, his gaze arresting Sherlock and somehow lessening the awful pounding inside his head. "Just tell me why."

"What do you mean, why?" Playing dumb is not for Sherlock, which is probably why John sees through it before he's even finished with the sentence.

"Do I really have to say it all? Sherlock, why did you do it? Why didn't you eat for God knows how many days, why did you take whatever you took? What were you missing that had you going back to it?"

Sherlock looks away, a grave expression falling over his face, and John wonders if it's too much too soon, if Sherlock's too fragile to handle the question as of late, wonders if he should backtrack and pretend everything's fine and things can go back to being lovely.

But everything's not fine, things aren't lovely, and John needs to know. His eyes are the kindest thing Sherlock has ever seen.

John and Sherlock sit for a minute, the silent air around them pregnant with tension. Sherlock sucks in a breath, more terrified than he's ever been.

"John. I... I can't. I'm feeling so much, and I can't.. express it. I wanted it to go away. _I_ wanted to go away. And I can't even think straight anymore because I'm in so much pain and I'm so confused, and I.." Sherlock's walls come down as his voice cracks and he buries his face in his hands. John is a little in shock, but leans forward and pulls Sherlock into his chest, stroking his thin, bony back gently.

"Shh," John hears himself whispering. The experience of comforting Sherlock is surreal, the idea that these are Sherlock's tears soaking into the fabric of his jumper and that's Sherlock's clavicle, digging into John's shoulder, and these are Sherlock's emotions, so rarely shown. "Shh. Just tell me what's wrong. Tell me what you're confused about. I'll make it go away. I promise."

Sherlock shakes like a leaf, and John reflects on the fact that though Sherlock is smarter than he is, he is also infinitely more fragile. He mumbles something into the neck of John's jumper, which of course is lost in the light wool. "Sorry, Sherlock, you're going to have to repeat that."

"I'm confused about you," Sherlock murmurs, his breath warm and slightly stale against the bare skin of John's neck. "I was so...I thought I could do what I normally do when I have a problem, go off food, you know...think it over...but it didn't work, John, it just wouldn't work and so I tried the only thing I could think of but I tried it too much, and the worst part is _I don't care, _because I still don't...I still haven't solved it. I still haven't solved us. I still haven't solved _you." _

John stiffens, and for a moment, Sherlock is scared. Scared of rejection. Scared of still being just a colleague. Scared of losing his only friend in the world, the only man he can't figure out.

But then, John softens and holds Sherlock tighter. "I'm sorry," he says simply. Vaguely.

"...Sorry for what?" Sherlock asks quietly, puzzled. John heaved a shaky breath into Sherlock's shoulder. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. That's all," John lies.

The nurse comes back. John can hear her shoes clacking all the way down the hall, but he waits until just before the point of no return before he breaks the embrace with the detective _(his detective? _the thought enters his brain and just as quickly evaporates, leaving nothing but a trail), sitting back in his chair just as she rounds the corner and pushes the door all the way open, a laden tray of food in her hands.

"You need to eat up, young man," she says sternly, putting the food on a swing-down table in front of Sherlock. "No offense, but you look like a stick. And not in a good way, hon. I'll be back in a bit to check your vitals, yeah?"

And she leaves again. Sherlock looks over at John, who's not looking at him. A bit of him hopes that now that the nurse is gone, John will resume their embrace, but this does not happen, and instead John picks up the fork that's come along with Sherlock's impromptu dinner and unwraps it. "You're going to eat, Sherlock Holmes, if I have to shove it down your throat."

Sherlock grumbles and stares at the steaming food. Mashed potatoes (instant), roast beef (possibly), carrots, and a cube of jello in a rather alarming shade of green.

"Thanks, I'll pass," he says coolly, leaning back against the headboard. As if he could eat. Even if he wanted to, his confession to John weighs heavily on his mind. John glares at him and picks up the plastic fork threateningly. "You are going to eat something, Sherlock, whether you like it or not."

Sherlock folds his arms and turns his nose up obstinately, rather like a child. "I'd like to see you try," he sneers.

"Are we really going to do this?" John laughs, regarding the Sherlock in a position of complete rebellion. "Am I really going to have to..."

He punctuates that by, quick-as-a-flash, plunging the fork in his hand into the roast beef and shoving it towards Sherlock's slightly open mouth. It's in before Sherlock realizes what happens, and John lets out a triumphant _ha! _as Sherlock yanks the now-clean fork out of his mouth in disbelief, staring at John like he's gone mad, and maybe John _has _gone mad, but the expression of confused outrage on the detective's face is enough to set him off giggling again.

Sherlock expects to react angrily; he knows that's what he should do, so he's nearly staggered by the emotion that threatens to pull him under as he watches John's triumphant dance, the swell of caring he feels for his flatmate, his doctor, his blogger, and because of this he puts the fork in the potatoes and begins to eat without protest. John watches in astonishment as he takes tiny bites, for not eating for a long period of time shrinks the stomach and it's all Sherlock can take without being sick.

John blinks once, twice in rapid succession. "Well. That was easier than I thought it was going to be. Are you feeling alright?" he asks almost jokingly, realizing quickly that now isn't the time, them being in a hospital and all. Sherlock laughs softly.

"You were never really one to sense the atmosphere," he says with a tiny smirk, wiping flecks of food from the corners of his lips. "I am sorry, you know. Even if I don't act like it. I would have done anything to avoid hurting you." He looks away to the window, his face stoic but his emotions betrayed by his body as a pink flush rises onto his cheeks. "It's beautiful outside."

John follows his gaze. Water spatters the windowpanes and a roll of thunder rumbles distantly. "It's raining," he points out. Sherlock shakes his head. "No. It's beautiful. Washing away the world," he says, murmuring his last phrase. John stares at him. He half thinks, half hopes it's the drugs he took, but he doubts it for the sincerity of his words.

Almost without thinking, Sherlock reaches out and threads John's fingers through his own, capturing them. His head still pounds, but it doesn't seem quite so bad. "John," he says, words heavy on the tip of his tongue; is this the moment? Could it be? "John," he tries again.

"Okay," says a doctor, backing through the door with a clipboard in hand. "Time to check your vitals, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock sighs. John looks up in surprise.

"Oh," the doctor says carelessly, looking at the pair of them. "Sorry." It's obvious he's not.

The doctor moves around the room, staring into the screens of various machines and making notes. John doesn't remove his hand from Sherlock's. Instead, he slides his fingers against his palm until his index and middle fingers rest on his wrist. He can feel his heart pound, faintly through the skin on his wrist, and at the same time, he can hear the same steady beat coming through the EKG machine he was hooked up to.

John's eyes travelled up to Sherlock's and he looked at him. No thinking. Just looking, feeling the iceberg eyes burn through his. And in the room, the beeps and the beats steadily grow faster, marginally.

"Ahem." The doctor clears his throat and looks at them with obvious annoyance. "Everything seems to be in order. I'll be back to check again in an hour. You two just... enjoy each other," he grumps, turning and leaving, coat fluttering out behind him.

They barely notice when he leaves; they barely notice anything except for each other. Sherlock stares into John's eyes, looking for a sign, any sign, and then he realizes that he doesn't actually have to say anything. So he sighs, thinking that if he halved the distance, and then John halved that distance, and so on and so forth and going on and on, halving into infinity and they'd never _actually _reach each other, because it would be impossible.

So he just...closes all of it.

It's not a kiss, not quite; their lips touch for only a second before Sherlock pulls back as if electrified. He's sure that he's just ruined everything, that the problem will remain unsolved forever and ever now, that surely John will leave now and Sherlock will have to find a way to get more drugs. He looks out the window with the streaky rain running down onto the white-painted sill and refuses to look back at John. His hands clench the snowy bedcovers of their own accord. John hardly notices anything strange, when they don't-quite-kiss. It all felt very natural, very... warm. And that's why he was surprised when Sherlock turned away to face the window, his body language stress but his face slack and calm. Vaguely disappointed, John says nothing, but places his hand on Sherlock's, covering his tensed fingers with his own callous ones and staring out the window at the rain with him.

Sherlock's eyes dart to catch a look at John out of the corner of his eye. He looks a little sad. But then, most people look a little sad, in general. However, John's sad was a special sad, a yearning sad that crept out from the corners of his heart and into the creases of his eyes and corners of his mouth, reaching out tiny, sad little fingers to taste the air it missed, being trapped in his heart. So Sherlock releases the bed sheets and wraps his hand around John's.

And they don't need to say anything.


End file.
